Allegheny Institute - Lincoln Radio Journal
Aug 6, 2026 · 9 min · 5 segments
A discussion of the 2026-27 state budget impact on education funding and school choice tax credits.
Public education funding in Pennsylvania has changed pretty drastically in the last few years as a result of a 2023 Commonwealth Convention.
court ruling that Pennsylvania's method of funding K-12 public education is unconstitutional.
The argument there being that public school districts receive funding from the state and also can raise local revenue, and so there's a vast disparity in the amount of local revenue that districts can raise, leading to some districts being underfunded and depriving students of a quality education.
To begin to address the ruling, the 2024-25 state budget allocated about $526 million for an adequacy investment, which was housed in the state's Ready to Learn block grant.
That adequacy investment is comprised of an adequacy supplement and a tax equity supplement.
the adequacy supplement being based on a district's spending relative to a successful district spending, the tax equity supplement being similar but for a district's relative property tax burden.
The fiscal year 2026-27 enacted budget includes an additional $565 million towards that adequacy investment, and then it also maintains the funding that was put into districts from the last two adequacy investments as well.
The other main component of the state's roughly $18 billion in public education funding is the basic education subsidy.
This is largely made up of whole harmless funding that does not decrease even when a district loses students, and then also money that was appropriated through the state's student-weighted funding formula from its inception in 2015-16 through the 2024-25 budget.
That amount is close to $7.94 billion, and the amount that goes through the student-weighted funding formulas is sort of like a discretionary amount is going from $325 million last year to $375 million this year.
Public education funding in Pennsylvania has changed pretty drastically in the last few years as a result of a 2023 Commonwealth Convention.
court ruling that Pennsylvania's method of funding K-12 public education is unconstitutional.
The argument there being that public school districts receive funding from the state and also can raise local revenue, and so there's a vast disparity in the amount of local revenue that districts can raise, leading to some districts being underfunded and depriving students of a quality education.
To begin to address the ruling, the 2024-25 state budget allocated about $526 million for an adequacy investment, which was housed in the state's Ready to Learn block grant.
That adequacy investment is comprised of an adequacy supplement and a tax equity supplement.
the adequacy supplement being based on a district's spending relative to a successful district spending, the tax equity supplement being similar but for a district's relative property tax burden.
The fiscal year 2026-27 enacted budget includes an additional $565 million towards that adequacy investment, and then it also maintains the funding that was put into districts from the last two adequacy investments as well.
The other main component of the state's roughly $18 billion in public education funding is the basic education subsidy.
This is largely made up of whole harmless funding that does not decrease even when a district loses students, and then also money that was appropriated through the state's student-weighted funding formula from its inception in 2015-16 through the 2024-25 budget.
That amount is close to $7.94 billion, and the amount that goes through the student-weighted funding formulas is sort of like a discretionary amount is going from $325 million last year to $375 million this year.
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